Abstract
This illustrative case study describes the evolution of a series of courses (2014-present) aimed at providing advanced students and early career researchers from a Czech STEM campus with the skills they need to adequately participate in global scientific endeavors. The involvement of library staff in the courses described here ranged far beyond embedding in the passive sense of the word, with all aspects of course design, implementation, and revision managed collaboratively and actively by an interdisciplinary, cross-institutional team championed by library personnel. Thus, this study raises the question of whether or not “embedding” is the appropriate term for describing active library leadership in such “catalytic” endeavors.
Structurally, the case study will linearly relate how course modules were developed and how the team approached various organizational and structural hurdles which emerged over time.
The study will also show how information literacy concepts were woven into the curriculum without being labeled as such—thus identifying a possible necessity for refining the discourse surrounding information literacy concepts so that students and researchers better understand why they are valuable.
The study includes original data from course evaluations as well as descriptions of final syllabi (topics covered, readings assigned, types of homework assigned) for two courses, Scientific Writing in English, and Gaining Confidence in Presenting. Because all instruction and materials were delivered in English, the content described will be relevant to anyone working with advanced STEM students and early career researchers who publish in English.
Finally, the study relates how such courses provide essential starting points for proactive engagement with patrons and includes examples of dialogues about writing, publishing, and related topics, introducing issues related to blur: the blurring of traditional boundaries between librarianship and scholarship.Abstract
A research study was done at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT) during 2014/15 to measure the application of information literacy skills after completion of a Certificate in Information Literacy (CIL). The results of the study lead to some questions around student learning: retention of what was taught, extent of skills transfer, multiple assessment methods and the role of rubrics. These are some of the questions that arose. What is a reasonable time to expect for a student to become information literate, therefore, retain the knowledge and skills that they were taught and continue to transfer those skills to various information challenges? The importance for students to use these skills across subjects and levels will be highlighted. What should be included in academic programmes to ensure the continuous development of these skills and the regular usage of library resources? Do the teaching approaches lead to short-term or long-term transfer?
This paper will unpack these concepts and questions further and share some practical ideas to address those. It will highlight the importance of working closely with faculty and that a departmental approach to Information Literacy is needed to ensure that information literacy is embedded successfully in an academic programme.Abstract
Research papers have been widely used as an assignment in higher education. While they can be effective in reinforcing students’ learning and fostering higher level applying, analyzing, evaluating, and creating skills to some degree, they are often overwhelming for lower lever undergraduate students. Meanwhile, librarians confront challenges of integrating recently-published ACRL’s Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education into information literacy training.
McGill University in Montreal, Canada has been making efforts to embed librarian services in students’ learning experiences. In the past two years, the instructors of an undergraduate geography course adopted a new assignment, Précis Plus, to replace the research paper that were used for a decade. Similar to a typical Précis assignment, Précis Plus required students to write a concise, coherent, critical summary of a scientific paper. Beyond that, it also required students to assess the legacy of the scientific paper and select examples from the contemporary literature to demonstrate how that legacy has manifested itself still relevant to research questions today. These learning objectives are aligned with the concepts of Research as Inquiry, Scholarship as Conversation, and Searching as Strategic Exploration as established in the ACRL’s Framework. To well equip students for the assignment, the geography liaison librarians were invited to deliver a 90-minute library session to the class which consisted of (1) locating full text for a known reference, (2) tracing articles that cite a given paper, and (3) keeping references organized in the research process. Student assessment revealed that students were fairly receptive to the new assignment and library session, and the improved quality of assignments attested the effectiveness of using Précis Plus to achieve the course’s goals.
This presentation will report on this faculty and librarians’ collaboration. Challenges, success, and lessons of using Précis Plus as a term project in an undergraduate science course will be discussed.Aim: The aim of this study is to analyse the impact of integrated information literacy teaching activities in project and theses courses from the 2nd cycle at KTH Royal Institute of Technology. The impact is studied by analyzing a set of master theses in Ergonomics presented during the years 2009-2016. This time frame coincides with an increase in the integrated information literacy teaching provided by the KTH Library for the master program in Ergonomics.
Method: We use an interpretative content analysis and a dynamically developed coding scheme to extract data concerning how the master theses incorporate and use earlier research in the theses. We use data collected from interviews with the Ergonomics faculty at KTH and responses to a survey of other Swedish technical university libraries to further analyse strengths and weaknesses in the information literacy teaching provided.
Results: The analysis shows that the increased presence of integrated teaching activities, together with a curriculum development made by the Ergonomics faculty, has led to improved master theses. We therefore claim that there is an increase in information literacy skills over time in students who completed the master degree in Ergonomics. Our preliminary recommendation is that our teaching approach can be fruitfully implemented in other master programs at Swedish technical universities, but there is a need for further studies.
Limitations: This study does not investigate information literacy skills obtained during candidate or PhD-studies, and it does not discuss possible impacts of academic information literacy teaching on the life-long learning process in students.
Despite the fact that nowadays most undergraduates in Hong Kong receive training as lifelong learners during their secondary school years, many of them are still challenged at adopting university-level information literacy (IL) into their learning practices. In particular, how to use new kinds of information in intellectual activities they have not carried out before.
In order to enhance IL among university students, libraries of the eight government-funded universities in Hong Kong collaborate in a three-years (2015-18) project to bring about a paradigm-shift at both teaching and learning levels.
At the centre of this project is the IL MOOC courseware, a self-paced asynchronous online resource designed to promote more proficient use of information to learn (Bruce, 2008) through general and discipline specific scenarios. The design of the five modules of IL MOOC addresses information practices and related dispositions (ACRL, 2015) in research tasks, including identify information needs of a topic, find suitable information efficiently, evaluate and select relevant information, create and communicate research outputs effectively, as well as contribute and benefit from participating professional communities. In order to illustrate discipline-related IL concepts and know-hows, subject librarians of each participating institution design scenarios, quizzes, and learning objects on arts & humanities, business, education, engineering, law, medicine, science, and social sciences. Students can choose to learn through different pathways to suit their learning goals. Findings from the quantitative and qualitative study conducted by this project provide insights and guidance on the content design of the IL MOOC.
This project also aims at strengthening faculty-librarian collaboration through setting up course enhancement funds for faculties to implement subject-related IL pedagogical innovations, as well as a capacity building program for librarians to enhance faculty-librarian collaborations.
Academic dishonesty and plagiarism are serious issues in institutes of higher education especially in this Internet age with academic literature and information readily available on the web. Some research studies point to the students’ lack of understanding of the concept of plagiarism and how to cite sources as reasons why they plagiarize (Volkov, Volkov, & Tedford, 2011). Academic librarians have an important role to play in providing instruction in the ethical use of information and helping students develop abilities to attribute and cite sources in their academic writing (Mages & Garson, 2010; Maxymuk, 2006).
Recognizing this important role played by librarians, the University Library at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) started offering face-to-face workshops on the topic in the spring of 2015. While the workshops were positively received by the participants, informal feedback from students points to a need for an online course which would provide asynchronous just-in-time training for students. In this way, students who are not able to attend the face-to-face workshops would be able to access the tutorial in their own time and at their own pace.
This paper reports on the process the University Library took to create and embed an online plagiarism tutorial in Blackboard, the Learning Management System (LMS) used by the university. Drawing on and expanding on materials covered in the face-to-face workshop, the online tutorial included original multimedia material, and a summative evaluation quiz. Improvements were made based on feedback gathered from students, library staff, and other university departments, such as the Office of Writing Services, Graduate Affairs, and ESP Instructors from the Writing Center.
The online tutorial was initially planned as an optional course for students, but with the support of Academic Affairs and Graduate Affairs, it has been mandated as a compulsory course for all new in-coming students.
References
Mages, W. K., & Garson, D. S. (2010). Get the cite right: Design and evaluation of a high-quality online citation tutorial. Library & Information Science Research, 32(2), 138-146.
Maxymuk, J. (2006). The persistent plague of plagiarism. The Bottom Line, 19(1), 44-47.
Volkov, A., Volkov, M., & Tedford, P. (2011). Plagiarism: proactive prevention instead of reactive punishment. e-Journal of Business Education and Scholarship Teaching, 5(2), 22.
A diverse and fluid range of digital tools are increasingly being used in university libraries as students absorb, create and communicate their academic understanding. Information and digital literacy (IDL) is central to this work; blending the transferable graduate attribute of information literacy with digital tools and skills enhances the development of actively engaged students. Emerging pedagogical approaches, which are central to the University of Sheffield’s Learning and Teaching Strategy, are placing students not as passive recipients of knowledge and learning in our society but as active knowledge creators. Engaging with information in a critical and ethical way allows for deeper understanding. The synthesis or ‘remixing’ of information, often using a highly visualised approach, creates and communicates new meaning.
This paper will present the development of our new vision for information and digital literacy and will outline what our distinctive offer will mean to current students and Sheffield graduates. The Library’s Learning Services Unit are driving this initiative and have explored national (UK) and international perspectives of IDL, before drawing on a narrative based approach to collaboratively write a vision for the future. The thought leadership at Sheffield has been influenced by work Anne previously led at Deakin University in Australia, shared at earlier IATUL conferences.
At Sheffield, collaborations with external stakeholders are now informing the development of a university wide framework for IDL whilst our workshops and online tutorials are being co-designed and co-delivered with a team of Student Associates. The paper will end by presenting the latest developments in this work before inviting IATUL delegates to continue to participate in dialogue around IDL and its interpretation and relevance in different institutional contexts.
